Cardinal numerals are used for counting. They are productively formed on the basis of fourteen free morphemes (een1,twee2, drie3,vier4, vijf5, zes6, zeven7,acht8, negen9, tien10, elf11, twaalf12, honderd100, duizendthousand) and a few bound morphemes (-tig-ty, -en-and, -oen-on, -ard-ard, milj-mill-, bilj-bill-). nulnull, zero, nought is rarely found in complex numerals.

The numeral twee2 has an allomorphtwin- in twintig20, for drie3 there is der- in dertien13 and dertig30, for vier4 there is veer- in veertien14 and veertig40, and for acht8 there is tacht- in tachtig80. The bound morphemes-oen-onand -ard-ard are used with milj-mill-, etc. to build internationalisms like miljoen10 to the power of 6, miljard10 to the power of 9 and biljoen10 to the power of 12.

Morphemes are combined by something that looks like compounding but with a different semantics: it is not intersective but sometimes additive (zes-tien = 6+10) and multiplicative at other times (zes-honderd = 6 times 100).

The element en looks exactly like coordinating enand but it has a different, additive semantics ('+'): twee-en-dertig2+3032, honderd(en)zes100+6106. The suffx -tig (pronounced /təχ/) is like English -ty (as in forty40) and German -zig (as in vierzig40) in that it is etymologically related to -tien, -ten, -zehn and makes names for powers of ten.

Some numerals can be pronounced in more than one way: 1421 may be duizend vierhonderd eenentwintig1000 400 21 or viertienhonderd eenentwintig1400 21. There are geographical differences: the first variant is found more in the South. If the numeral refers to a date, there is a third possibility, as hundred can be left implicit: viertien eenentwintig14 21 (cf. Pollmann (1998)).

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According to Booij (2010: 166), "the feature that distinguishes Dutch (and German) from English, French and many other European languages is that for numbers between 21 and 99, the ones come before the tens. The two numbers are obligatorily connected by enand which is not pronounced as [en], the phonetic form when used as a conjunction, but as [ən]. In numbers above 100, the connective en is optional, and is always pronounced as [en]. What we see then in the pattern for the numbers 21-99 is a morphologization of an original syntactic pattern of coordination, with a concomitant phonetic weakening of the full vowel of the conjunction en into schwa, the typical vowel of grammatical morphemes. In numbers above 100, the pattern is formally (including phonetically) still identical to that of syntactic coordination, but such numeral expressions are felt and written as one word. Hence, we consider this pattern also to be a morphological construction that originated through the morphologization of a syntactic construction. This is confirmed by the fact that the main stress of such numerals is located on the last constituent (for example, honderd(en)éen101), whereas there are equal stresses on the parts of a syntactic coordination." The generalization that between 21 and 99, en is always pronounced with schwa is disputed by Marc van Oostendorp (Neder-L).

The initial /t/ in tachtigt-acht-ig80 (< acht8) is usually traced back to a historical prefix related to honderd100; it is also postulated to explain the possibility of a voiceless pronunciation of the initial consonant in zestig60 and zeventig70.

[+]Cardinal numerals beyond 12

In numerals between 12 and 20, the word order is low-high, the semantics is additive: vijftien5 +10. In the names of the units of 10, the order is stem-tig. If we assume that tig means '10', the semantics is multiplicative: zes-tig6*10. Between 21 and 99, the structure is small-en-large, the semantics is additive: drie en zestig3+60. In units of 100, 1000 and higher, the order is small before large, the semantics is multiplicative: driehonderd3*100, zesduizend6*1000, vierendertigmiljoen34*1000000. Complex numerals larger than 100 are built from the building blocks just described: driehonderddrieenzestig(3*100)+(3+60). The parsing and pronunciation of really big numerals is a skill taught in school: a string such as 345678910111213 is first parsed from last to first into triples 345.678.910.111.213; the last triple denotes units, the penultimate thousands, the antepenultimate millions, etcetera, yielding driehonderdvijfenveertig biljoen zeshonderdachtenzeventig miljard negenhonderdtien miljoen honderdelf duizend twee honderd en dertien(Brandt Corstius 1965).

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Other arguments can be provided that in numeral formation we are not dealing with normal coordination: firstly, inflection attaches only to the rightmost part in verbs like eenentwintigen21-en (a card game), (not *enen en twintigen), constructions like we zijn met zijn eenentwintigenwe are with his 21-enwe are a group of 21 (not *we zijn met zijn enen en twintigen), een vijfentwintigjea [5+20]-DIM25 guilders bill, etc. Secondly, the rigorous word order in numerals: next to vierentwintig4+20 we do not have *twintig(en)vier20-4 as a possible (grammatical) numeral (although it can always get a default interpretation as a standard coordination, but that also holds for vierentwintig).

Besides the regular cardinal numerals, there is a small number of irregular cardinal numerals with an indefinite meaning: veelmany, much, weinigfew, etc. Given our semantic definition of the numerals, these would belong to this category. Veel and weinig are morphologically unlike the normal cardinals in that they have (suppletive) comparatives and superlatives (veel, meer, meestmany/much, more, most, weinig, minder, minstfew, less, least) but do not function as basis for ordinal numeral formation.

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Dutch (and other Germanic languages such as English and German) have fewer numerical atoms than, for example, French where the series continues after douze12 with treize quatorze quinze seize13 14 15 16, to become compositional only with dix-sept10 7seventeen.

In compound cardinal numerals below 100, there is a word order difference between Dutch (and German) on the one hand and English and Romance languages on the other: in Dutch and German, the system is systematically low-high: negentien, neunzehn19, eenentwintig, einundzwanzig21, in English the order is reversed in compounds larger than 20: nineteen vs. twenty-one, in French from dix-sept10+7seventeen onwards.

Van Katwijk (1968) observes that the grammar of Dutch numeral names overgenerates in the sense that many speakers accept number names such as tweeduizend achttienhonderdtwo thousand eighteen hundred which have no reasonable interpretation.

The suffix -tig can be used (just like German -zig) as an indefinite numeral to denote a contextually large number, but then it is pronounced with a full vowel /tɪχ/): d'r zijn ook tig dingen waar jij beter in bent dan hijthere are also umpteen things where you better in are than hethere's also a lot of things which you are better at.

The indefinite cardinal numeral veelmany, much is the basis for an interrogative quantifier hoeveelhow many, how much, which has a corresponding ordinal numeral hoeveelstehowmanyeth: de hoeveelste is het vandaag?the howmanyeth is it todaywhat is the date?.

Morphological potential of cardinal numerals: ordinal numbers are formed regularly on the basis of cardinals, by means of a suffix (vier-defour-th), see here. Cardinals and ordinals together are the building blocks for fractions (drievierdethree fourth) see here. Cardinals can also be used as names for ranks, scores, banknotes etc. (ik had een tienI had a tenI had the highest score) and then they behave like nouns, with the possibility of diminutive formation, pluralization etc. (twee tientjes en een vijfjetwo ten-DIM-s and a five-DIM-stwo tenners and a fiver). Cardinal numerals occur as the lefthand part of compounds: eenkamerwoningone-room-housingroom flat, tweestrijdtwo-strugglestruggle, duel, driehoekthree-cornertriangle, vierkantfour-sidesquare, zevenbladseven-leafground elder, Aegopodium podagraria, duizendpootthousand-pawcentipede, and they can be input to derivation; the results are mostly nouns:

getweeënPRE-two-SUFFthe two of them, gevierenPRE-vier-SUFFthe four of them

Finally, cardinal numerals occur in a number of constructions in which they appear to show some kind of morphological marking: na vijvenafter five-enafter five, met ons drietjeswith our three-DIM-sthe three of us, see here.